Tauntaun
by sartietingles
Summary: On a dark and stormy night, something exciting always happens. And when Sam Evans arrives at Artie Abrams' door, needing a place to stay, things definitely get exciting.


**Media**: Fic  
><strong>Title<strong>: Tauntaun  
><strong>Genre<strong>: Romance/Gratuitous Fluff  
><strong>Word Count<strong>: ~4000  
><strong>Pairing<strong>: Sam/Artie  
><strong>Summary<strong>: On a dark and stormy night Sam arrives at Artie's door, needing a place to stay.

_Feedback is very much appreciated and I hope you enjoy reading!_

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><p>"It was a dark and stormy night," Artie Abrams whispered to himself dramatically as wild weather waged war on Lima. Wind howled through the streets while the thunder echoed powerfully like a timpani and rain pelted down so hard that he was worried it would bore holes in his roof.<p>

Artie sighed happily. He loved weather like this.

His 5-year-old brother Eddie did not seem to agree at all, however. He'd come out of his room in his pyjamas with shaking hands and a terrified expression.

"Artie!" he whimpered, sprinting through the living room and them clambering onto his older brother's lap, knocking his homework off the desk. "I'm scared!"

"Aww don't be scared, little bro!" Artie urged, laughing and ruffling Eddie's dark hair playfully. "Haven't you seen the movies? This is the best kind of weather!"

Eddie looked at Artie with wide, questioning eyes. "How?"

"Something exciting _always_ happens on a dark and stormy night," Artie gushed with a grin. He rolled the two of them to the window and they looked at the howling trees and angry flashes of lightening.

Eddie stared out silently. "Like what?"

"A handsome stranger at the door," Artie listed. "Flash flooding, meteorite in the backyard, alien invasion."

"Alien invasion? Really?" Eddie exclaimed, wringing Artie's hands in excitement.

"Anything could happen," Artie replied mysteriously.

Eddie edged closer to the window and began pointing out suspicious looking stars and accusing them of being UFOs. Artie grinned proudly at the raging nerd his brother was quickly becoming and he joined in, remarking on how suspicious the lights in the park across the road looked. Eventually Eddie went back to his room, asking to borrow Artie's telescope on the way.

"Just don't let the aliens see you!" Artie called after his brother.

"Of course not! Oh my god, I'm not stupid Artie!" raged Eddie loudly from his room.

Artie chuckled and went back to his homework, listening to the drops pounding and half considering going outside so he could be a part of it. Before he knew it he'd moved to grab an umbrella and a coat and head outside, but he was stopped by the sound of the doorbell ringing.

"THEY'RE HERE!" Eddie screamed and threw himself across the house.

Eddie climbed onto the back of Artie's chair and sat on his older brother's shoulders as they both headed towards the door. The younger boy shook with excitement, with his fingers crossed that the alien was Klingon because that was the only alien language his big brother knew.

The door opened and a tall figure stood behind it, dripping wet and carrying a large bag.

Artie beamed when he saw who it was. "Sam!"

"Hey, man," Sam smiled oddly. He looked rather uncomfortable and distressed.

Either way, Eddie was unimpressed with this development.

"You're not an alien," Eddie said accusingly.

"At least he's a handsome stranger," Artie retorted before he quite knew what he was saying.

Eddie laughed. Sam smirked and raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Ugh," Artie stammered. "In joke. Anyway, come in out of the rain. You're soaking!"

Sam bowed his head and walked in awkwardly. Eddie made his way back to his room, giving Sam another sour look due to his lack of alien-ness.

Artie, however, was a little concerned. The more he looked at Sam the more he thought something was very wrong. "To what do we owe the pleasure?" Artie tried, smiling.

Sam avoided Artie's gaze and shuffled uneasily. Then, voice heavy with shame, he muttered, "I need a place to stay."

Artie blinked. "S-sure!" he said kindly, somewhat taken aback. "Of course!"

Sam's bag fell to the grown and Sam crumpled on the floor next to it.

"Dude," Artie moved closer. "What's wrong? What happened?"

Leaning his head on his hand, Sam looked up at Artie.

"My parents have been out of work for a while now. And they said it might be," he sighed, trying to find the right word, "…easier if I stayed with a friend for a while. It's kind of getting hard to feed all five of us."

"Oh, Sam," Artie said gingerly. "I'm so sorry." He reached over for a hug but Sam was further away than he'd thought so he just ended up putting both hands on his head like some kind of weird priest.

Sam smiled gratefully. The past few weeks had been some of the worst he'd ever had, but Artie always managed to make him feel better in his own awkward way.

"Stay with me as long as you need to ok?"

Sam shook his head. "I'll be here for a week or two, tops. I'll go stay with Puck or Finn after that. I don't want to be a burden."

Artie chuckled. "My mum's been asking me to invite you over ever since she found out what happened. She asks about you every day. Now that you're here, she might never let you leave."

"Precisely!" a female voice came from behind them. Catherine Abrams, a petite woman with dark hair and Artie's blue eyes, strode over to Sam and immediately fussed over how thin he was and before he knew it Sam was in the kitchen having something cooked for him.

"Really, Mrs. Abrams, you don't have to. I'm fine."

"Nonsense!" Catherine insisted. "And don't you worry about finding someone else in a few weeks – you can stay here til your family are ready to have you back. Until then, you can help Artie with his chores and you won't be a burden at all." Artie, who had just rolled up beside Sam at the table, nodded at him enthusiastically.

Sam didn't look convinced, and began regretting coming here at all. It was too much to ask. He wondered if he should just leave right now and hope they forgot all about it. He panicked, and nearly got up to leave until a hand arrived on his shoulder.

Artie was looking at him earnestly. "It'll be OK, Sam," Artie told him, reaching across for his other shoulder and pulling him over so his head rested on the bespectacled boy's shoulder. "And until it's OK, you can stay with us."

Sam tried to smile. "I can't thank you guys enough."

"You are more than welcome, honey," Catherine urged. "Actually, Sam is there any chance you can cook?"

"Yeah?"

"Fantastic! You can teach Artie. He refuses to learn from me."

"You can't cook?" Sam laughed into Artie's shoulder.

"Hey! I'm a connoisseur of instant noodles," Artie replied defensively. "And I make a mean grilled cheese."

Catherine rolled her eyes. "Sam, honey, if you can teach Artie how to cook, I'll be forever in your debt."

Sam smiled, for real this time. "Deal."

And so, Sam came to stay at the Abrams' residence. Eventually Eddie forgave him for not being an alien and they got on famously, playing pranks on Artie and generally being goofballs. Sam also discovered Artie's family nickname (Artie-bear) and started calling him it all the time, initially as a joke but eventually just as a natural nickname. The two of them got a lot closer, too, talking extremely late every night after Sam got home from working at the pizza place. They talked about girls, boys, friends, enemies, crushes, the future, the past and everything in between.

"I had such a thing for Puck," Artie confessed one night as they buried themselves in junk food and old video games.

"Oh god me too," Sam said through a mouthful of Doritos.

Artie chortled. "Who _hasn't_ had a thing for Puck though?"

A food-noise of agreement came from Sam. "Even Puck has a thing for Puck."

Artie swore and choked on his food, guffawing ridiculously.

"Charming," Sam snarked.

"Fuck you."

They made faces at each other across the room.

"So what's your Puck story then?" Sam asked Artie.

He sighed. "I really liked him, but he had no idea. It was a sort of… nerdy guy hopelessly infatuated with the bad-boy stud unrequited feelings thing."

Sam nodded understandingly.

"He was actually the first guy I ever liked," Artie said wistfully. "And the first of many to never like me back."

"Aw, Artie-bear," Sam said consolingly. "There'll be tons of guys – and girls – who will love you for who you are. Everyone else isn't worth it."

Artie looked touched, then smirked. "That was deep, Sam."

"Fuck off. If you're not nice I won't tell you _my_ Puck story," Sam teased. "It's much worse than yours."

"I'm listening," Artie leaned forward eagerly.

"Well," Sam began dramatically, "I was playing Bejewelled at Puck's, and Puck told me he knew a way to ruin the game for me forever."

"Oh god I don't want to hear this story I love Bejewelled," Artie whimpered, flailing his hands in horror.

Sam smirked. "I don't have to-"

"No! You do have to. I love your stories even when they leave permanent emotional scarring," Artie urged.

"OK, so I was like 'No way man no one can ruin Bejewelled for me'," Sam continued, for some reason putting on a voice when reporting his own speech. "And then he just grinned at me and was like, 'pretend you're pleasuring it.'"

"What."

"Yeah I don't know what goes on in that dude's brain…" Sam mused. "Anyway I told him that was kind of fucked up and he insisted it was absolutely hilarious. Because whenever you got a combo it says like "EXCELLENT" or "INCREDIBLE" and for some reason Puck found that extremely sexual. So as I was playing he started yelling the words like he was having sex and I'm a grand master at Bejewelled as you may know so it was like combo combo combo everywhere and…" Sam gave an embarrassed laugh, "it was kind of hot."

Artie snorted with laughter. "And then what?"

Sam bit his lip, trying not to laugh himself. His voice came out in that squeaky way it does when you're supressing giggles. "And then we had sex."

Eventually (after knocking over a lamp and suffering other laughter related injuries) Artie regained the ability to even. "Wow."

"Yeah," Sam agreed, still sniggering. "I lost my virginity to Puck because of Bejewelled."

"Can that be on your epitaph or something?"

Sam grinned. "Totally."

After Artie put the lamp back where it should be, there was a lingering awkward silence between them.

"Well," Sam said. "I don't know how we recover from that..."

And Artie was only half joking when he suggested they play bejewelled.

Some weeks later; Artie and Sam had one of those nights where absolutely everything seemed funny. They split their sides at nearly everything they said to each other, and were constantly struck with what they thought were glorious ideas of stupid shit to do.

Because wouldn't it just be so funny if they changed the language setting on Mario Kart to German? Artie looked up some German swears for them to yell at each other as they played. And wouldn't it be just fucking hilarious if they set up a bowling game in Artie's hallway with Artie as the bowling ball and various items of furniture as the pins? It became even funnier when Sam sat on Artie's lap and they wheeled themselves dramatically (albeit slowly due to the added weight of Sam in the chair and that inability to do anything your limbs get when you laugh too hard) down the hall, set on taking down the couch. And then funnier still when they both fell out of the chair. Sam had landed with his head on Artie's chest and Artie was laughing so hard Sam feared he'd get whiplash or something. They lay there together for a while, comfortable and content, laughing quietly and blushing when they thought they were touching too much, but neither wanted to move away – that is until they were struck with a brilliant idea.

Because wouldn't it be funny if they went to Kurt and Finn's house in the middle of the night? Burt was surprisingly up for it when Artie suggested midnight football in the backyard. Sam tried to be referee but Finn ended up tackling him because he favoured Kurt and Artie's team so much. Half an hour passed when the biting cold of the night or the thrill of running around with no shoes and pyjamas got to them all and all rules went out the proverbial window. The game descended into madness – with Sam riding around in Artie's lap chasing Finn all over the yard, and a brief demonstration of how Burt Hummel is better than everyone, in which Burt took on all four of them in a match and won. Despite this, Sam the referee named Artie and Kurt the winners and after a surprisingly well-rehearsed rendition of "Can't Touch This" as Kurt and Artie's victory celebrations, Sam and Artie bade Burt, Kurt and Finn goodnight and danced the whole way home.

When they arrived their laughter went on undeterred. Artie was in stitches about the sounds Sam made when he brushed his teeth, and Sam laughed at Artie's laugh because it had gone way past the adorable chuckle he usually had and morphed into something uncannily close to sounds made by a Wookiee.

Anyone around them would have sworn that they were drunk, and Sam was almost concerned that Artie had spiked something he drank (he didn't really have the best track record with alcohol). But both of them, separately, came to the conclusion at some point in the night that everything was hilarious and shiny and brilliant and glorious because they were happy. It didn't seem that complex or unusual, but after thinking about it they both realised they hadn't really felt happy in a long time. Sam had spent half the year in the closet because Kurt didn't love him back _and_ had to deal with his family's issues, and Artie had been cheated on and dumped by not one, but two girls who moved on quickly and extremely happily to other partners. But the past few weeks they'd spent together had been the best either could remember. And it had all peaked on that glorious night where all they could do was laugh, because they had each other, and thus finally a reason to.

Eventually they settled down to sleep, Sam on the mattress on the floor next to Artie's bed, with the remnants of giggles still piercing the quiet night. Artie dozed off quickly, as he always did, while Sam listened to the muffled snoring and humming sounds Artie made when he slept that he had grown to love, like many other things about his friend. He sighed loudly, hoping sleep would come soon. But it didn't.

Shivering in the cold night, he rolled over, trying to find warmth. Met with the sight of Artie's hand hanging off the side of his bed, he wanted to desperately to take it_. At least it might wake Artie up so he can find tell me where to find more blankets_, Sam justified to himself. He took his friend's hand, ignoring the leap in his heart as his did so, and squeezed it a little. But Artie was a heavy sleeper.

"Artie!" Sam whispered loudly, which sort of eliminated the point of whispering.

Artie gave an incoherent mumble in response.

Sam squeezed his hand again. "Artie! Artie-bear!"

"What?" droned Artie. "What's happening?"

"Dude, are there any more blankets? I feel like I'm on Hoth."

Artie made an appreciative noise at the reference. "More like Coldth!"

Sam high-fived him mentally.

"And nope, you're in the spare ones."

"Oh," replied Sam, before he was struck with another brilliant idea.

Because wouldn't it be funny if he climbed in with Artie?

"Shove over, man," Sam mumbled, gathering up the blankets off his mattress on the floor. "I need to get my cuddle on."

Artie groaned at the idea of having to move, but eventually shuffled to the edge of his bed because who the hell would turn down cuddles in this cold. As Sam climbed in, Artie was struck by a horrifying thought. "Sam!" he said as sternly as possible.

"What?" responded his concerned friend at the edge of the bed, suddenly feeling like he was crossing a line. "I can just go back-"

"No no no no no," Artie slurred, considering scolding Sam for that horrifically terrible idea.

"Then what?"

"If this is you on Hoth trying to stay warm," Artie grogged, "Does that mean I'm that camel thing?"

"Oh my god," Sam laugh-sighed, diving under the covers and turning to face the smaller boy. "You are perfect, you know?"

Artie regarded him gravely. "No, I'm serious. That thing is disgusting and this is a parallel too strong to ignore, I'm quite offended."

"'That thing' is actually a Tauntaun," Sam corrected, "And don't worry, you're gorgeous."

A look of disbelief and confusion spread across Artie's face. "Say what?"

Sam looked equally surprised at his word vomit. "I.. uh. I meant you're not ugly like that thing..."

"Tauntaun," Artie corrected, a smile creeping up.

"Yeah," Sam laughed. Covering his face in his hands, he laughed, "That's probably the most awkward thing to say to someone just after you force yourself into their bed."

Artie chuckled thickly. A small internal part of him was throwing a dance party because Sam Evans thought he was gorgeous. And perfect. The party must have gotten a little out of hand, because Artie found himself grinning and blushing quite furiously at his friend in the near dark. Sam smiled back because of all of Artie's smiles, the uncontrollable goofy grin was his favourite (Sam paused momentarily to consider how creepy it was that he had favourites among Artie's smiles). Then before he knew it he was taking Artie's hands that lay in the small space between them and their hearts were racing and their fingers were entwining. And when Artie's grin grew even wider when he did this, Sam was struck with another brilliant idea. Because wouldn't it be funny if he just leaned in and kissed him now? But, to Sam's surprise, it wasn't funny as he inched towards the boy he adored, who he had adored for so long somehow without realising it. He didn't find it funny at all when the feeling of Artie's lips against his was better than anything he could remember or even imagine. It wasn't funny at all when Artie wrapped his arms around Sam, pulling him closer, kissing him sweeter and deeper and better, or when they finally ended the kiss, smiling helplessly at each other. Neither was it funny when they fell asleep in each other's arms, safe and warm and happy like they never knew they could be. No, it wasn't funny at all. It was, however, unquestionably perfect.

The next morning, Artie woke up alone. He pulled himself to an upright position and looked across to the mattress on the floor to wish Sam good morning and possibly throw something at him to make him wake up like he did every day. But Sam wasn't there, and Artie wondered why. The events of the night before slowly unfolded in his brain, and then he found himself sighing happily while hugging his pillow like the soppy protagonist of a romantic comedy. He threw the pillow across the room like it was laced with disease when he realised how he must have looked. Still, he couldn't work out why Sam wasn't there now, until a faint memory of shuffling of blankets, a sudden coldness and lips against his cheek reminded him that Sam had simply got up hours ago.

Eventually Artie made his way into the kitchen where he found Sam helping his mum and Eddie make breakfast. Sam suddenly stopped when he saw Artie roll in, smiling at him like he was the sun rising, and nearly dropped the frying pan.

Artie couldn't help but grin hugely at this. "Good morning," he said with laughter in his voice. Artie's mum looked shocked.

"Artie, honey, I don't think I've ever seen you smile before noon before!" she joked, nudging Sam in the ribs as his cue to laugh.

He made a strangled sort of noise and muttered something about leaving something in the living room before rushing out, and Artie followed immediately. Sam turned to face him as he entered the room, and they were silent for a moment.

Artie rolled towards him, trying to find the right words.

"You were in my bed last night," he said slowly and accusingly.

Sam's smile suddenly became sheepish. "Yeah," he acknowledged.

"You told me I was gorgeous," Artie went on in the same accusing tone.

"Yeah..."

"You kissed me."

"Yeah," Sam grinned despite himself.

Artie looked at him seriously. "Are we OK with that?"

"Yeah?" Sam said, hoping that was the right answer. "I mean, I am. Are you?"

Artie beamed. "Yeah."

"Awesome!" Sam fist pumped.

"Breakfast's nearly ready." Catherine appeared in the doorway. "What are you boys talking about?"

"Star Wars," Artie blurted, and at the same time Sam said, "Batman."

They looked at each other with slight panic. Catherine looked confused.

"We were talking about what side Batman would be on if he was in Star Wars," Sam explained, looking thoroughly proud of himself for coming up with this.

Catherine rolled her eyes affectionately. "I'm so glad Artie finally has someone like you, Sam," she gushed before leaving the room.

Sam turned to Artie, still looking extremely chuffed.

"The rebellion," Artie said promptly.

"What?"

"What side Batman would be on," Artie said, with feigned frustration in his voice. "It's obviously the rebellion. Why would we even be discussing that?"

"Um-"

"Seriously, Sam, if you're going to be embarrassing me and ruining my street cred like that all the time maybe I'm not so OK with what happened."

Sam smirked. "Oh really?"

"Yup," Artie said, with a dramatic disappointed sigh.

"Even if I did this?" Sam asked, kneeling down to Artie's level and kissing him fiercely.

Artie moaned a little despite himself and once again Sam looked quite chuffed. Artie then shook his head furiously, "No, I still don't think I'm OK with it. You might have to try that again."

Sam chuckled and obliged, quite happily. Artie pulled away and gave a shy smile, "OK, I think I'm ok with this."

Sam applauded and they both laughed and smiled and kissed and laughed again.

Because wouldn't it be funny if they fell in love?


End file.
